Book Review A Game of Thrones
Hey guys! So today I am sans Leslie, no Leslie here today, because I have a book review for you about Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. This hunk is 807 pages not including the appendix, which I did read as well.
It is, more or less, if you don't know an epic fantasy series that takes place in the land of Westeros. There are seven kingdoms. You know, there's the normal knights, wizards, and kings, queens. There is that normal stuff and then there is the sort of George R.
R. Martin thing that he adds on. The thing about Westeros that makes it different from a lot of other middle-age settings is that summers and winters there can be years long. So, when you start this book the, the whole area has been in summer for I think it's about 10 years and when they have winters, winters are horrible.
They're years long. People die because they run out of food. There is feet and feet of snow and a lot of the older characters sort of chastise the younger characters by saying, oh you know nothing. You don't know winter.
You haven't experienced winter. You're a summer child. That's sort of the huge difference and the overall looming thing is that winter is coming. That also happens to be the words of the House Stark which is one of the main houses in here and you follow a lot of different characters, but you follow a lot of characters from the Stark house.
There's also the Lannister house. They're obsessed with money. There's a lot of other minor characters. This book has a lot of characters and it helped because I have seen the TV show so I kind of already had pictures in my head of a lot of these characters and have sort of established who people are.
The main difference is that, in the TV show, they aged some of the characters up because certain characters in the book are only 13 or 14 years old and they're doing things that only grownups can do on television so they have to age the characters up to make it appropriate. I have these pictures of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen and they're in the show they're probably like mid- late teens, early twenties. I think that's like kind of what they're trying to go for in their age group. In the book they're 14 years old! 13 Or 14 years old.
The book itself, the print is extremely tiny so it took me over a month to read this, but it is written extremely well. Like, there is, there's really great prose in this book. I had no issue with how the story flowed and how it was told. As I said before, you see things from many different characters' points of view and you often go back to them after a couple chapters.
So if something shocking happens you have to wait a little bit before you can get back to it, which sort of heightens the anticipation of: oh my god what just happened? All the characters are super interconnected. George R. R. Martin has such a history for these characters.
It's amazing how much backstory he has and you get a lot of that backstory for reading the appendix afterwards, which explains the different major houses and sort of their lineage and whatnot. In terms of favorite characters, Arya but Arya is, I love Arya even, you know, before I read the books. I like Jon Snow too though he's not, like, a big favorite. Sansa...
Hard to like her in the first one because she's so convinced about her love for this Prince Joffrey who is a total butthead. Eddard Stark, or Ned, who is the head of House Stark is, he's so gallant and he's so honorable and it's hard not to like him but sometimes you're like: oh honey, it's okay. Like, this isn't going to work out for you. I know you want it to but it's not going to because everybody else is so corrupt.
Tyrion Lannister, he's the imp or half-man or dwarf, whatever you want to call him. He is a really interesting character because he's sort of like the rejected one of the Lannisters so he's got a lot of money but his father doesn't love him and you get to be inside his head a lot in here and he's, he's an extremely cunning character. You get to sort of see his mind work his magic in this book even more so than you might get from a TV show and that's great. You also see points from this book that you didn't see in the TV show.
There's certain, like, fights that are extended. There's exchanges between characters that you never saw, characters you never met who you're kind of like: he would've been cool to have the show. And then there's the characters that you just love to hate and that's kind of, that's kind of the point of them like Prince Joffrey. Daenerys, I kind of have a love-hate relationship with her.
Sometimes she's cool and sometimes she... Ugh, she annoys me too. You can get yourself to read 807 pages 'cause some people just, no, doesn't do it for them but, I don't know, I like a challenge. I'm already, I've already started Clash of Kings which is the second book.
But if you really like epic fantasy series and you like detailed characters where they're all intertwined. Grand stories and lots of fighting and sometimes slightly shocking stuff then this, this is a good book to challenge you and it's a good book to read. There are so many underlying story lines in this book that even start right from the beginning and you know things that the characters don't even know and you're like: why don't, why don't you see this? Why don't you see this? But they don't see it and you know and *sigh* of course I can't say too much 'cause I don't give anything away. Although, probably a lot of people have been spoiled because of the TV show.
Overall, I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars. It's a strong book but there are points in it where you're kind of like: okay this is really, really weird or you feel like they're spending way too much time on a character and you're kinda like: you know what I want to move on. I want to hear something more interesting than a couple people bantering back and forth. Although I'm sure that banter is extremely important later on you just don't know it at the time.
I also want to address the comparison that sometimes happens between Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. They are completely different. The only thing they have in common is the middle-age sort of setting that does have knights and kings and battles and whatnot. The Lord of the Rings was written a long time ago and they're actually a little bit difficult to get through.
I've read them so I know. Game of Thrones is a lot easier to get through. It's also much more interesting, I think. There's much more detail in the sense of the characters and their interactions with each other while Lord of the Rings is extremely detailed in terms of like...
The setting. Game of Thrones is much more brutal. This is like a more modern fantasy novel that I think is much more approachable for everyone whereas Lord of the Rings is sort of for like those hardcore people who really want to challenge themselves and say they've read it. Thank you guys very much for watching.
If you have read this book and, you know, want to leave some of your thoughts below, maybe ask me a couple questions about, ya know, certain things I didn't address, feel free. And of course subscribe if you like hearing about books and of course you can always follow us on Twitter and friend us on Goodreads too. All the links are below and I will see you guys later. Bye!.
It is, more or less, if you don't know an epic fantasy series that takes place in the land of Westeros. There are seven kingdoms. You know, there's the normal knights, wizards, and kings, queens. There is that normal stuff and then there is the sort of George R.
R. Martin thing that he adds on. The thing about Westeros that makes it different from a lot of other middle-age settings is that summers and winters there can be years long. So, when you start this book the, the whole area has been in summer for I think it's about 10 years and when they have winters, winters are horrible.
They're years long. People die because they run out of food. There is feet and feet of snow and a lot of the older characters sort of chastise the younger characters by saying, oh you know nothing. You don't know winter.
You haven't experienced winter. You're a summer child. That's sort of the huge difference and the overall looming thing is that winter is coming. That also happens to be the words of the House Stark which is one of the main houses in here and you follow a lot of different characters, but you follow a lot of characters from the Stark house.
There's also the Lannister house. They're obsessed with money. There's a lot of other minor characters. This book has a lot of characters and it helped because I have seen the TV show so I kind of already had pictures in my head of a lot of these characters and have sort of established who people are.
The main difference is that, in the TV show, they aged some of the characters up because certain characters in the book are only 13 or 14 years old and they're doing things that only grownups can do on television so they have to age the characters up to make it appropriate. I have these pictures of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen and they're in the show they're probably like mid- late teens, early twenties. I think that's like kind of what they're trying to go for in their age group. In the book they're 14 years old! 13 Or 14 years old.
The book itself, the print is extremely tiny so it took me over a month to read this, but it is written extremely well. Like, there is, there's really great prose in this book. I had no issue with how the story flowed and how it was told. As I said before, you see things from many different characters' points of view and you often go back to them after a couple chapters.
So if something shocking happens you have to wait a little bit before you can get back to it, which sort of heightens the anticipation of: oh my god what just happened? All the characters are super interconnected. George R. R. Martin has such a history for these characters.
It's amazing how much backstory he has and you get a lot of that backstory for reading the appendix afterwards, which explains the different major houses and sort of their lineage and whatnot. In terms of favorite characters, Arya but Arya is, I love Arya even, you know, before I read the books. I like Jon Snow too though he's not, like, a big favorite. Sansa...
Hard to like her in the first one because she's so convinced about her love for this Prince Joffrey who is a total butthead. Eddard Stark, or Ned, who is the head of House Stark is, he's so gallant and he's so honorable and it's hard not to like him but sometimes you're like: oh honey, it's okay. Like, this isn't going to work out for you. I know you want it to but it's not going to because everybody else is so corrupt.
Tyrion Lannister, he's the imp or half-man or dwarf, whatever you want to call him. He is a really interesting character because he's sort of like the rejected one of the Lannisters so he's got a lot of money but his father doesn't love him and you get to be inside his head a lot in here and he's, he's an extremely cunning character. You get to sort of see his mind work his magic in this book even more so than you might get from a TV show and that's great. You also see points from this book that you didn't see in the TV show.
There's certain, like, fights that are extended. There's exchanges between characters that you never saw, characters you never met who you're kind of like: he would've been cool to have the show. And then there's the characters that you just love to hate and that's kind of, that's kind of the point of them like Prince Joffrey. Daenerys, I kind of have a love-hate relationship with her.
Sometimes she's cool and sometimes she... Ugh, she annoys me too. You can get yourself to read 807 pages 'cause some people just, no, doesn't do it for them but, I don't know, I like a challenge. I'm already, I've already started Clash of Kings which is the second book.
But if you really like epic fantasy series and you like detailed characters where they're all intertwined. Grand stories and lots of fighting and sometimes slightly shocking stuff then this, this is a good book to challenge you and it's a good book to read. There are so many underlying story lines in this book that even start right from the beginning and you know things that the characters don't even know and you're like: why don't, why don't you see this? Why don't you see this? But they don't see it and you know and *sigh* of course I can't say too much 'cause I don't give anything away. Although, probably a lot of people have been spoiled because of the TV show.
Overall, I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars. It's a strong book but there are points in it where you're kind of like: okay this is really, really weird or you feel like they're spending way too much time on a character and you're kinda like: you know what I want to move on. I want to hear something more interesting than a couple people bantering back and forth. Although I'm sure that banter is extremely important later on you just don't know it at the time.
I also want to address the comparison that sometimes happens between Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. They are completely different. The only thing they have in common is the middle-age sort of setting that does have knights and kings and battles and whatnot. The Lord of the Rings was written a long time ago and they're actually a little bit difficult to get through.
I've read them so I know. Game of Thrones is a lot easier to get through. It's also much more interesting, I think. There's much more detail in the sense of the characters and their interactions with each other while Lord of the Rings is extremely detailed in terms of like...
The setting. Game of Thrones is much more brutal. This is like a more modern fantasy novel that I think is much more approachable for everyone whereas Lord of the Rings is sort of for like those hardcore people who really want to challenge themselves and say they've read it. Thank you guys very much for watching.
If you have read this book and, you know, want to leave some of your thoughts below, maybe ask me a couple questions about, ya know, certain things I didn't address, feel free. And of course subscribe if you like hearing about books and of course you can always follow us on Twitter and friend us on Goodreads too. All the links are below and I will see you guys later. Bye!.
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